What I Read Last Month (February 2025)

Being a short month, I’m hardly surprised that my “finished books” list is looking rather slim compared to a bumper crop of reading in January. However, what this list lacks in volume it makes up for in its eclectic nature. Let’s take a look.

The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier

I really enjoyed this masterful historical novel (with a touch of magical realism) that is at once about a young woman trying to keep her glass-blowing family on the island of Murano together and also a story of the rise and fall of glass-blowing in the Venetian lagoon—and even the city itself. It is beautifully written and extensively researched. I highly recommend it.

The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown

I realize that this audiobook is not going to be for everyone just based on the subject matter, but it was a fascinating read. Growing up in California, the Donner Party looms large in our state history education, but it has been a long time since I have read anything about the doomed group of pioneers who tried to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains into California late in the season and became stranded by storms. Brown tells the story by focusing on Sarah, a young woman who strikes out from her family farm with her new husband, and weaving in accounts of the other party members. If you can handle the content, it is well worth a read or a listen.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

I have been working my way through a list of what I think of as bestsellers I missed when they broke out. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue completely passed me by when it felt like everyone was reading it. Now that I’ve finished it I think can understand all of the excitement (and love) that a lot of readers have for it. Addie LaRue is a young French girl who makes a deal with a devil like figure that saves her from being forced to marry but lands her with the unexpected consequence that the moment someone turns away from her, they will forget her. She’s lived for centuries making no impression on anyone, until she meets a man in a bookshop who remembers her. The book mixes historical and contemporary timelines with a bit of magical realism, fantasy, and romance.

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

I am always on the look out for new mystery series, and this first book in the Castle Knoll Files series is a charming start! Annie is a young woman who has long known of her mysterious and eccentric Great Aunt Frances, a woman who has lived her life assuming that a village fete fortune teller was right when they predicted she would one day be murdered. When Frances actually is murdered, Annie learns that the only way she can inherit Frances’s fortune is by solving the case. What follows is a fun, well-paced mystery full of characters from the local village of Castle Knoll.

Always a Bridesmaid by Erin Clark and Laura Lovely

This is a charming Audible exclusive romance novel about a bridesmaid for hire and the wedding-skeptic best man who fall in love. Packed with charming characters, this gave me the exact warm fuzzy romance feelings that I wanted on my grim February walks through the countryside.¹

What are you reading right now? Leave me a comment to let me know!

1. Full disclosure, Laura Lovely is a good friend (and even dropped an Easter egg into this book for me), but know that I would never recommend a book without really meaning it.